Rolling blackouts affecting Lawton as companies look to lighten load on grid - The Lawton Constitution

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Lawton residents may find themselves in the dark this week.

The Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) began rolling blackouts in Lawton under the direction of its governing body on Monday. Though the alert was later lowered, the situation remains fluid and it could be raised once again.

As of 1 p.m. on Monday, 1,700 customers had been taken down and were scheduled to remain down for anywhere between 1 to 2 hours, according to PSO’s External Affairs Manager Tim Hushbeck.

The Southwest Power Pool issued a nearly unprecedented Level 3 alert to its member companies on Monday afternoon, indicating that power reserves had fallen below the minimum required level.

“After we went to level 3, they could ask us to start shedding load at any time, they requested to offload 44 megawatts of power,” Hushbeck said. “To give people an idea, one megawatt would be like one large box store. It’s kind of unprecedented for us. In the 30 plus years I’ve been with PSO we’ve never had to do this before.”

Hard to pinpoint cause

The Pool serves all of Kansas and Oklahoma, as well as portions of New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming and Nebraska. With a coverage area that large, Hushbeck said it’s hard to pinpoint any one thing that could be to blame for the low levels.

“It could be damage from some areas that are experiencing ice if they lost a big feeder or transmitter, but for the most part we are a summer peaking utility. Usually in August is when you’ll get your highest bills because of AC and such. It’s unprecedented for us to go with long stretches of super cold weather like what we’ve had the last few days,” Hushbeck said.

Schedule of blackouts not known

As of Monday afternoon, Hushbeck could not say how long, or how often, the rolling blackout would be. And while the company plans to keep each blackout to an hour, Hushbeck said they could creep into two hours. It all depends on the weather over the next few days and how well the system is able to handle the increased load.

“It is difficult to estimate,” Hushbeck said. “It will depend on the weather and what is happening in some of our surrounding states. By Friday, I think we are supposed to be above freezing again, so that will be a game changer.

As of Monday evening, the Southwest Power Pool had lowered the alert level back to 2, but the situation remained fluid and could change throughout the week, according to Hushbeck. While level 2 does not call for rolling blackouts, it does ask that communities continue to try and conserve power.

“We are asking everybody to help us shed load anyway they can, either by adjusting their thermostats down, not running appliances, and certainly not running anything that requires a motor or compressor,” Husbeck said. “Tuesday morning will be crucial because we will have the lowest temperatures we’ve had all year. We don’t want anyone putting themselves in danger, but if you can lower your temperatures a degree or two, it will help.”

In addition to PSO, the Cotton Electric Cooperative, which also falls under the auspices of the Southwest Power Pool, reported that rolling blackouts came to their members as well on Monday. However, unlike PSO, Cotton Electric had no say in which customers were affected by the power conservation efforts.

“We don’t take the customers down, our power supplier makes that decision,” Karen Kaley, Director of Marketing and Communications for Cotton Electric Cooperative, said. “I don’t know what goes into the choices they make there, but we have told our customers to conserve as much energy as they possibly can to help lessen the demand. Hopefully that can push down the need to take an extreme measure like that.”

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